Kickoff

Well, today was the big day. We got up at 5am and trucked all the way down to St. Francis to discover the nature of this year's FRC. I am VERY excited about the game this year(Rebound Rumble). A derivative of basketball, I believe the 2012 competition will be an incredibly intense and difficult season for even the most seasoned veteran teams. It seems after 2 decades of hard work, FIRST wants to push us even harder!

Actual Kickoff went quite well, and the brainstorming session held in the 3189 RoboLab also went well for the most part. Tho good about today's meeting was that a LOT was said and the structure that was put in place by last year's Task Force did a great job of forcing the team to learn the rules and understand the game before we even started discussing possibilities for the season and robot. Unfortunately I feel some of the other work done by the Task Force is being partially ignored by the majority of the team. The conclusion made by the Task Force over last summer was that the greatest source to date of 3189's failure is our tendency to try to create a robot that is capable of doing everything on the "checklist" of tasks FRC gives us each year. The Task Force also concluded that the "solution" is to choose a select few functions for the robot to perform, and perform well. At the end of today's meeting the team was split with the majority leaning towards a multi-purpose robot: exactly what the Task Force recommended against. The final discussion will happen tomorrow morning when people are rested and less irritable. Time will tell what game strategy the team chooses.



Without watching the Game Animation (above) or reading the Manual, it is difficult to really understand how the game works. It is played on a 27ft by 54ft field, with 4 basketball hoops on each end of the field at 3 different heights. The MS Kinect sensor seems to be legal in virtually any use or configuration. From usage on the 'bot to as a controller, FIRST really wants to let team creativity rule all with this particular donation. Apart from the Kinect, the Kit seems to be pretty standard. It appears the included wheels have changed this year, and the First Choice program (used by teams to purchase additional parts with points allotted by FIRST) is back for a second year in what appears to be a much more streamlined version 2.0.

Tomorrow (Sunday) all-day meeting will be used to
     1) Finalize game strategy (was supposed to happen today).
     2) Inventory KoP (Kit of Parts) in order to ascertain whether a missing parts request must be sent in.
     3) Develop (Discuss, evolve and finalize) overall robot design